Report: Capital Region is upstate’s foreclosure capital?

A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York says the Capital Region has upstate’s highest foreclosure rate, although the study lauds the overall stability and strength of the area’s housing market.

The report, entitled Bypassing the Bust, notes that most upstate metropolitan areas continued to see home price appreciation while the prices in much of the nation were faltering.

The report adds that upstate had much less trouble with sub-prime loans than the rest of the nation.

But the reserve bank also found that the delinquency and foreclosure rates among sub-prime, or non-prime loans, is higher in the Capital Region than elsewhere upstate.

It says that 12.5 percent of such loans were delinquent in 2009, as opposed to 10.3 percent in Buffalo and 10.7 percent in Rochester.

Meanwhile, the Capital Region’s 12 percent foreclosure rate is significantly greater than the rate of 6.5 percent in Buffalo and 8.1 percent in Rochester.

Not coincidentally, the Capital Region also had the highest rate of home appreciation prior to the recession.

Capital Region foreclosure rates are still far lower than in most of the country. In fact, rankings from groups like RealtyTrac usually put the Capital Region, along with the Buffalo and Rochester areas, near the bottom of the national list.

No! It must be the slimy real estate agents who connected first-time home buyers with the loan sharks banks and mortgage houses.

The sleezy dealing of real estate agents with lenders amount to a conspiracy against home buyers who are fed the propaganda that owning a home is the American Dream.

Really, local builders still want to charge amazingly high prices for new construction even though wages and incomes in this area are stagnant. Older homes are selling for more than they are worth considering the need to remodel and general maintenance.

So the buyers are not to blame as much as the real estate agents.

But no one has gone after their role in the national sub prime mess.

The Wall Street Journal reported that real estate agents where getting $10,000 for each application they delivered to Washington Mutual, the largest bank in American history that went bust in early 2008.

Those agents must have recognized that some of those buyers were in income brackets that would come back to destroy their dreams and economy. Real estate agents belong to a special breed of slime that makes used car dealers look respectable.

According to the Feds, and as stated above, this region had far less trouble with sub-primes loans than the rest of the nation. The Albany has always been a concertive marketplace.
Corrupt Clintons- there is NO-ONE to blame for forclosures! Most homeowners are not walking away from their homes just for the heck of it. Most of them lost jobs or like many Americans had high medical expenses. There is no blame-game here; there should be compassion and sorrow.

Lori- you get my compassion and sorrow for believing that.
Prices are too high.
Corrupt appraisals are to blame.
Greedy agents, builders, and now sellers are also to blame.
Bottom line is this…people are leaving the state by busloads.
Every one left shoulders the tax burden.
Taxes go higher, bills are higher = forclosure.
Blame the cost of building materials or whatever you want but it all boils down to greed.